Law and Order: PA
by Zeit's Library
Summary: A cross over between the RO-inspired RP group Project  A esir and Law and Order. Pretty much what happens whenever you stay up past 3 AM.


_In the city of Lighthalzen, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups. The detectives who investigates crimes and the district attorneys who prosecute the criminals. These are their stories._

**The Lighthalzen Hotel: 11: 42 PM**

He should be used to it. The job required strange hours yet for some reason Adonis Caskay was never prepared. The best he could hope for was to not walk out of the house half-naked most nights with just his badge, but at least tonight he had been thinking somewhat clearly. Although it didn't mean he looked any less ruffled in his dark suit and shirt with no tie. Soaked in flashing blue lights he managed to get a quick look behind him. Something of a crowd was starting to form around them, which would only make his job that much harder.

_It'll be nice if this ends up straightforward._ Caskay grumbled, shoving his badge onto his breast pocket, to avoid any possible hassle. The night was actually quiet pleasant; much warmer than the usual. It wasn't natural, but still it should've been at least a little enjoyable.

"Hey Ado."

The redhead had taken his time, but soon found himself in an enviable place: a place where he wouldn't be called anything other than 'Detective'. His eyes flashed for a moment before focusing on the voice before he finally found it familiar. Not that he wanted to hear it now or anything, but it was good he didn't have to answer the call alone.

"Sorry ta interrupt your beauty sleep." Orion smirked at him; similarly dressed down to the gold shield hanging from his neck. They had been friends from way back: farther than that even. Their childhoods had been intertwined and when Adonis left to enter police work, it was only a matter of time before Orion Erebus joined him. Unlike his friend, however, Orion took a more orderly approach to the job; pushing past his friend's recklessness most days to get the job done.

"Ha ha." Adonis sighed, ducking under the yellow tape to get a better look at the bloodied sheet laying over their victim. It didn't help too much. Whoever was responsible for this wasn't clean in any fashion; leaving long crimson streaks along the cobbled streets and hotel's staircase. "What happened?"

"We're trying to figure what led to it. The victim's female though and we're pretty sure how she was killed." Orion shrugged. "Warm night. Everyone's out for something and no one saw a thing until some kid tripped up over the body. They've got him inside."

"You haven't spoken to him yet?"

"Didn't think I'd be the best choice for that." Orion muttered, tugging his shades down just enough for the milky whites of his eyes to be visible. As close as they were, Caskay had a bad habit of forgetting his partner's birth defect. Although his eyes couldn't handle harsh or direct light, Orion could still see well enough to hold his job. Functionality, though, wasn't the immediate problem, "If the kid's already freaked out, last thing he needs is to try and look me directly in the eye."

"Fine. We'll get to him as soon as we can determine the cause of death." Adonis waved it off, heading to the chalk outlining the body. "Hell this might actually be kinda easy."

"I wouldn't count on it Ado."

A flicker of curiosity crossed Caskay as he turned back to Orion, who wasn't bothering to even looking at his direction. They had seen countless of murder scenes before: of anyone Orion should've been used to it. "You mean you don't have an ID yet?"

No reply. Adonis decided to shelve it for now. Whatever Erebus' problem was, they could get to it later. With a deep breath Caskay pushed aside the oily scent of fresh blood and reached for the sheet, his mind honed with his experience of what this line of work brought to him. Slowly he pulled it up; more worried that someone trying to look past the uniformed officers would see something.

From what he could tell their victim was female; probably in her 20s...maybe less than that. Caskay only got a shooting glance at her body before pulling the sheet back down to shield his own eyes. The color of his face began to wither and drain as he got to his feet, his violet eyes frozen on that spot on the ground.

"Odin... Where's the-"

"Head? No clue." Orion said softly as Adonis got halfway up the stairs before having to take a seat. His experience told him that the crime couldn't have taken place too long ago. Still in the front of his mind, Caskay could see the jagged wound running across the severed throat; blood still running in a morbid drip to the street underneath it. Maybe it was an amateur-excited over his first kill. Or, worse, it was someone who's done it and no longer gave a damn.

Shaking his head clear of what he saw, Caskay began working overtime to get focused on something else: something more urgent. Like, catching whoever did it. Just overhead Orion had managed to get himself past the victim; a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth as he looked down at Adonis. He had wanted to warn him it was somewhat grim; but time with Caskay proved certain things the farm boy wouldn't learn unless he saw it with his own eyes.

"...Remember what I said about this being easy?"

"No."

"..." Adonis breathed a bit easier now that the initial human revulsion began to wear out. Pulling his head upright, he watched as the body was bagged and lifted onto a stretcher. "Good."

xxx

"I didn't see anything."

He was scared and it showed. The boy didn't bother looking either Detectives in the eye; instead numbly gazing somewhere off in the distance. He barely spoke above a whisper, and even in the safety of indoors it wasn't loud enough to carry over the buzzing of the crowd outside. Neither Orion or Adonis pretended to have any knowledge or ability with teenagers, and Orion especially hung towards the back of the hallway; leaving Adonis to go at it alone.

"I...haven't even asked you a question yet."

The green-haired kid shifted a little; maybe just a random impulse. Clutching at the thermal blank given to him he shut down again; pale and withering with each passing second. Soon he would shut down completely and they would be completely lost. It wasn't something Caskay was ready to admit defeat to just yet: not after what he had just seen.

"Hey," Adonis said in the most gentle, big brother he could muster up. "What's your name?"

The boy was slow to respond but he seemed to be listening. Quietly Caskay took a seat next to him, feeling a shiver of fear radiate into the cushions of the bench. No matter what he said, he clearly had seen something. As horrifying as the scene outside was, it could only been ten times worse if you thought it could be you next.

"I know what ya seen can't be real fun to think about. You just wanna go someplace and get it pulled outta your head. Right?"

"..."

"You know I'm a cop right? My name is Adonis."

"...Yeah."

"I can help ya if you help us." Caskay smiled a little bit, just enough to catch the attention of the young male next to him. "Just tell me who you are. What's your name?"

"..." He was still hesitating. Slowly though his thin mouth cracked open and hung before sighing. "Kallistei. My name's Kallistei Konradr."

"Good. That's good Kallistei." Caskay breathed an internal sigh of his own; this one of relief. At least now they had a better chance of getting something useful. "I just need to ask ya a few questions okay? And whenever you want to stop I'll stop."

Kallistei nodded, willing somewhat to go on but he would still have to tread cautiously. "Okay, so is this someplace you usually hang out at?"

"...No. I'm with my parents...I'm supposed to be with them but I wanted to see more of the city."

Inside Adonis winced, idly scratching the back of his neck. He didn't have to image what is was like to leave home and be greeted with something as mind-bending as a murder scene. "We can call your parents: get ya back home if you want."

Kallistei nodded: slowly at first and then faster.

"But before I can let ya go, I need to-"

"No!" Kallistei shouted, raising Orion's attention as the boy jumped to his feet. "I didn't see anything! I already said that!"

Now he were definitely onto something. But still, trying to be careful was getting harder and harder. "I'm not sayin' that. Just relax. I know you didn't see anything: nobody did. I just want to know what you did. That's it."

"...What I did?"

"Yeah. Just what you did to get here. Tell me that and we'll get you back to your folks."

Kallistei frowned and glared up at Adonis for a long time. He looked and was looking for far more than what Adonis could provide. He was just a man after a criminal. What could the Detective understand about fear? Despair? A thought blazed through Kallistei's head to run out, now, while he could. Before he could turn tail he felt himself back into something; or rather someone.

"Do you have to do that?"

"What?" Orion smirked slightly as Kalistei got out from underneath his shadow. Kallistei stumbled, not even hearing the other detective

"I wish we could just let ya go, you know? But we need your help. You saw what happened out there?"

"...I saw her body. And her...blood...it's everywhere."

"We need to catch whoever did that. We can't do it without you kid."

"...I didn't see anything. But-" Kallistei started, another flash of dread crossing his eyes before he squeezed them shut. "I heard people talking before."

"Talking?"

"I think one of them is the girl. The other one had a really deep voice...he didn't sound like he was from here either."

"You mean he had an accent?" Orion asked, to which Kallistei nodded. Finally, something of a lead. Adonis stood and motioned to two uniformed officers. There's no further need to push the kid for information.

"These men are going to take you to your parents okay? Just tell them where to go." Adonis barely go the last of his sentence out as the uniforms ushered Kallistei away, back to his despondent self. The bits of his heart not nullified by work and the familiarity of evil that came with it went out to him. If he was lucky, maybe one day Kallistei Konradr would look back at all of this as just a really bad nightmare.

"A man with an accent?" Orion muttered to himself. "That only disqualifies 1/4th of Lighthalzen."

"Still though, its something more than what we had before yeah?"

"Maybe. So, do you think he's a witness?"

"He probably saw the bastard's face. I don't blame him for keeping quiet about it. Maybe after we catch him he'll be able to help us out more then."

"Caskay! Erebus!"

The two detectives cringed and turned towards the door as their boss walked through the door. In their short experience, Adonis Caskay and Orion Erebus had realized that there were essentially two types of commanding officers. The first was the type they both had a liking towards: the type that understood enough internal politics to give them room to get the job done. Never asking for specifics, this type simply waited in the shadows to report an arrest to the media and higher ups in the police force.

Then there was Lieutenant Kiara Kanzaki. Barely at chest level with her two primary detectives, she nevertheless inspired fear through her knowledge of the book rather than her abilities behind the scenes. It took a lot to rattle her and a lot more to get her off guard. She hated screwups and kept them on eggshells.

But then, at the same time, she was here in person. It said a lot: far more than she could ever possibly say aloud. Both detectives quickly questioned, around the same time, how far word about this crime had gotten for the Lieutenant to be here.

"How far have you two gotten?"

"We're trying to get a witness list together." Orion stated softly, playing his usual role as communicator after the first meeting between Kanzaki and Caskay nearly ended in a brawl. "We may have an eye witness to everything, but he's pretty shaken."

"I was on the phone with Usoa the entire way over here. He wants hourly updates until we capture this guy."

Another shiver went through both Caskay and Erebus at the thought of Omri Usoa keeping his eye on them as well. Not one for either extreme on the superior spectrum, Lighthalzen's District Attorney was dogmatic and not above playing human chess to secure convictions. Omri Usoa did his job ably enough as he was one of the few elected officials trusted in the city. It wouldn't do any good telling that to Orion or Adonis though.

"Last thing we need is for that son of a bitch to get involved." Orion muttered, getting something of a chuckle out of his friend.

"Well this is one time I guess we can count on the DA to move things along on our behalf. Maybe we can put up with him?"

"I want you to do more than put up with him. Until we find this psychopath you're going to give him whatever he needs." Kanzaki stated. "I don't want there to be anything that'll risk convicting whoever did this."

"...'Anything'? I dunno-"

Erebus and Kanzaki stopped to take a long look at Caskay; deep into his own little world. It happened enough for them both to be well use to it, but it had a way of getting off topic: especially now when they all needed to be focused.

"We've got no weapon. Right now we've got no head either. And our only witness may not even have seen anything."

"So?"

"...I'm just saying I want to catch this guy Lieutenant."

"Then get out there and catch him Caskay." Kanzaki said firmly, her icy eyes piercing into the back of Caskay's skull. "This isn't your first time on the short end of the stick. You and Orion need to work with it."

"Yes m'am." Orion nodded as Kanzaki walked off, leaving Adonis in a befuddled huff. "It is easy enough to say. Here's another one: is this an amateur?"

Ouch. That was something Adonis definitely didn't want to think about. "I didn't see anythin' that'll say otherwise. Too much blood. Body left in plain-view of everyone."

"So either he doesn't know or doesn't care?" Orion wondered out loud, his train of thought a bit better structured than his friend's. "Or he's daring us. And this...bad as it is...is just his way of saying hello."

"...Gods I hope you're wrong on that one."


End file.
